It can be a frustrating conundrum. You have a physical part in your hand, and you are tasked with recreating it. It’s sitting right there in front of you, but to complete your task, you need to go all the way back to the drawing board, or at least your CAD station.

Or you could use 3D scanning technology to reverse engineer the part and go almost directly to 3D printing and complete your task sooner than later. 

3D scanners can digitize even complex objects quickly and precisely into practical CAD formats. From there, your options are the same as if you designed the part from scratch.

What is Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering is the extraction and analysis of information and technological principles from an object, including its dimensions and functions. 

Its purpose is to determine the design of a finished product, without needing to acquire the knowledge that went into determining the design and other procedures involved in the original production.

Uses of 3D Scanning for Reverse Engineering

 Reverse engineering with 3D scans makes it fast and easy to produce a highly accurate 3D digital model of an assembly and all the components of a part. You can scan objects as small as USB sticks, and as big as small airplanes. That flexibility is evident in everything else you can do with 3D laser scanning for reverse engineering.

1. Design New Parts to Fit – High-quality 3D-scanned models can be the basis for a new part design.
2. Modernize Product Development – Scan existing parts to allow them to use additive manufacturing and digital development processes.
3. Fix Manufacturing Defects – Eliminate the need to “go back to the drawing board” and reduce quality control issues.
4. Value Engineering – 3D models created from scanning are often used to deconstruct and analyze a product to find ways to reduce costs.

Third-party 3D scanning services can be a cost-effective way to take advantage of all of the benefits of reverse engineering from 3D scans, without the time and cost of acquiring the machinery and expertise needed.

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